Barbers

Inside a Bursa barber shop at 9:30 a.m. TV wall news blasted Kabul heavy alliterative artillery literary fire.

Dust explodes. Images flood the consciousness - trains filled with tanks, armored cars, firefights in Iraq and Syria, suicide bombers, machine guns, rata-tat-tat-tat, expose yourself for a flash of sight, aim, fire, reload, as smiling wealthy diplomats shake hands for the cameras and media propaganda value.

They gesture peaceful intentions. We agree to disagree.

Smile.

An old man gets a close shave. The barber is short, white haired with trim black mustache in a white smock, brown loafers, working the silver blade down elastic cheeks erasing yesterday’s growth. The old man closes his eyes, feeling steel blade sensations as lather evaporates his existence in a calm, gentle way.

A small bell rings as a man pedals his portable mango and pineapple fruit cart along a dirt road in Cambodia. Does the sound come to the ear or does the ear go to the sound, asked Rita.

*

One morning Tran and I located a street barber in Saigon. He’s on the corner of Noise & Confusion, a main drag through the heart of a swirling mass of mobile humanity. Beep-beep.

His place was bare bones marketplace essentials. He works a small corner of a cement box surrounded by a wire fence. One old comfortable broken barber chair, a lopsided table and a cracked mirror completes the ensemble. Cheap blades, electric trimmer, a straight razor, comb, and brush.

Cut black hair spills out of a green plastic bag near the gutter waiting for someone to recycle stuffing stuff.

The Dark Years

It was curious seeing the Cambodian barber open on the last day of Khmer New Year. The river town was dead quiet. Merchants and families slept in shuttered shops behind metal gray accordion sheets. A tropical afternoon sun beat down. White cumulus clouds billowed in the east. The barber had a customer. A white haired war veteran. He’d fought against Vietnam, Khmer Rouge, Death and his Ghosts.

He didn’t talk about it. He survived. Silent conversation was his destiny.

He sat in a solid steel chair staring at his reflection. He saw a long thin serene brown face and wavy white hair. A long mole resembling an inverted Buddhist pagoda hung down from the left side of his chin. The mole saved him from Khmer Rouge executioners. They were superstitious peasants. They believed he was the Devil. They released him.

He and the barber conversed in French. The thin barber had thick black parted hair. He’d lived here all his life. He survived four genocide years by killing his dreams and hiding with his family in mountains where the French later constructed and abandoned a post office, hotel and casino. All bets are off. They were The Dark Years. No one talked about The Dark Years.

The old man closed his eyes. Besides gardening and playing with his grandchildren, savoring blade sensations and ointment aromas with small talk were his simple luxuries.

Using small steel clippers the barber trimmed hair. It fluttered to a cement floor meeting piles of black hair. Electric trimmers with old frayed wires collected dust on a narrow wooden table under a fractured mirror. Hello Beauty.

After trimming neck hairs he adjusted the chair, easing him back. The old man meditated on miracles and impermanence of life.

The barber extracted a thin razor blade from a small piece of paper. He severed both ends into a soda can. Clink. He opened a wooden handled straight razor edging the blade in.

He sprayed water mist around the man’s head. Moisture refracted light prisms and dust. He trimmed microscopic hairs around the outside edge of an ear lobe before shaving above sideburns angling the man’s head with his left hand. The razor slid from temple to temple across the scalp line rasping skin.

He was quick, silent and efficient. Smooth artistic hands shaved skin fast and light. Short, fast and deadly. The blade danced on skin under the eyes. He wiped the blade on a white towel lying on the man’s chest. He shaved lower sideburns. He returned the man to a sitting position. The man smiled at his reflection. Hello Beauty.

The barber snapped the towel across shoulders removing dead cells. The man eased out of the chair. He removed a roll of money hidden near his waist. He peeled musical notes to the barber.

Merci. Au’voir.

He shuffled out. His son waited for him on a motorcycle. He tried to swing his right leg over the rear seat. He hesitated. He couldn’t manage it. His left hand reached for a shoulder. His frail contorted right arm was useless. The executioners broke the Devil’s arm. They wanted to hear the Devil scream.

Bursa barber. Cádiz barber. Hanoi barber. Cambodia barber. Faces shaved, haircut, clip, clip scissors, storytellers all.

All vocal music, choral tales of imaginary love, kindness, forgiveness, journeys, beauty, creativity, travel, adventure, risk, authenticity, truth and maladaptive trust with barbers.

Book of Amnesia Unabridged

Natasha From Kiev

Zeynep said, I read about how women are treated in many countries. Here in Turkey health care workers report 65% of all wives are beaten by their husband.  It’s considered normal behavior because women are treated as property.

We’ve all read stories about arranged marriages, child marriages and the desperate plight of women on Earth. Men never learned how to kiss and make up, the women know about makeup and suffering in silence, women are literally and figuratively screwed, she said.

I tell the truth. I don’t have to remember what I said, said Rita.

Zeynep’s story about domestic abuse reminded Omar of Natasha.

On September 1, 2001, ten short days before an Apocalypse in the big apple, passengers at the Amsterdam airport waited for their flight to Casablanca. There was Your Self, a Moroccan man from Fez living in San Francisco going home to see his family after many years. He would stay three months.

There was a woman from Kiev with her 5-year-old son. Her name was Natasha, tall, slim and beautiful. She was married to a Moroccan man. They’d met at the university in Kiev and now he lived in Amsterdam. She had not seen him for three years and he didn’t know his son. He did not come to the airport to see her because he didn’t have the correct papers nor was she able to leave the airport and see him because she lacked the correct papers so she waited for her flight to her new home.

Natasha had heard rumors, myths and fabricated lies about her fate but had never seen it because she was blind. She was taking her son to Morocco where they would meet her husband’s family and live. She did not speak French or Arabic.

Her cheap red, white and blue plastic Russian baggage fell apart at the seams. Her son pissed his pants leaving a trail of urine in the departure lounge. Natasha was beside herself.

I’d finished a draft of A Century is Nothing that summer. I was jumping through a window into hunting and gathering adventures discovering new material.

Everyone spoke the same language as unanimous night collapsed around roaring planes leaving gravity taking people somewhere. We were buried at graveyard gate 54D, miles from gleaming duty free shops with exotic perfumes, electronics, banks, casinos, toy stores, restaurants, diamond rings, watches, customs, clothing stores.

Wealthy shoppers carried yellow plastic bags saying, Buy and Fly.

A homeless Asian elf dragged a purple bag saying, Buy & Cry.

A destitute shadow of a former self had a clear bag saying, By the By.

An orphan had an empty bag saying, Why Tell Me Why.

No one in particular had Papa’s Gotta Brand New Bag.

Everyone carried his or her bag of skin & bones to the graveyard.

At midnight in Casablanca passengers walked through a towering hall of intricate inlaid blue mosaic tiles and waterfalls. Huge framed images of a smiling monarch watched people.

Customs was a formality and the baggage conveyer belt broke down as frustrated passengers waited. Small wheels on useless baggage trolleys were bent and stuck. They careened left and right as people wrestled impossible loads through nothing to declare green zones toward friends and relatives.

I helped Natasha load her broken bags on a cart and she disappeared into humanity with her son. Her husband’s Berber family approached - his father, mother, brother-in-law and grandmother in traditional jellabas. They welcomed her with a hug speaking words Natasha did not understand. They scooped up the boy. As the old couple walked away I knew they would take him forever, this progeny of theirs, their DNA connection to their son.

Natasha, an alien aberration in their world would be relegated to a harsh new reality. She moved into their world with a Ukrainian passport, speaking an unknown tongue to be a slave serving her new family. She would be many things to them. They would manifest their loss on her. She’d carry water and chop wood. She’d cook, clean and slave away. Fate gave her new opportunities.

She’d carry their fading light, hopes, dreams and memories. Their grandson would realize everything. They disappeared into a sprawling chaotic city of five million.

Their son in Holland relied on his mobile. He could do no wrong. He was a grand man in their eyes and hearts. Many women came and went in his dark eyed nomadic destiny life. When Natasha was trapped in the airport he was with a prostitute and he didn’t have the correct papers anyway. He wasn’t lying when he said his family would take care of her.

Omar whispered this fairy tale to Natasha. She didn’t believe it.

Book of Amnesia Unabridged

V Train

At dusk I severed a Hanoi alley to a lake for fresh air and sky to sit at a motorcycle repair shop with iced java. Two females dressed to kill using their hot naked sex passed on a cycle negotiating potholes, dust, and rocks with SMS direct.

A woman burned paper money in an old can to celebrate her new house, prosperity, honor and respect for her ancestors. Your location cannot be determined, said SMS.

On the balcony with pink flowering bougainvillea I enjoy green tea and white yellow clouds with quick rainstorms sharing whistle songs with free raptors as others died on balconies in cages.

After two weeks avoiding whizzing whirling dervish motorcycles, I ventured to the train station before high noon. It is a long faded yellow French cement block. I passed a window with a red sign, Brigade Leaders Collect Team Tickets Here.

I am a leader without a brigade. The narrow room has bolted blue plastic seating and numbered glass windows. At the end of the room next to the W.C. a huge mirror in a heavy brown lacquered frame creates an illusion of surreal space.

Counter #2 is where foreigners get tickets. Options include soft sleeper, soft seat, hard seat and no seat. I’m taking the SE1 overnight train from Hanoi to Hue, the ancient capital on the Perfume River known for art and architecture. Resplendent.

Omar asked me to burn his book A Century is Nothing at Phu Bai south of Hue in a symbolic fire ceremony.

I would like a ticket to Hue please. One way.

A woman behind thick glasses said, Soft sleeper.

It wasn’t a question it was a statement. She knows foreigners taking the night train want to sleep, have children take care of them when they are old and dying of loneliness while cooking over coal fires or forest shards admiring natural scenery before it’s gobbled up by corrupt companies as powerless locals improve their standard of living by hustling a little middle class economic dream.

Tonight, said the woman, sharply.

No, Sunday please.

She pointed to a calendar on the counter.

Number 19.

Yes.

She punched in the numbers. She pulled out a pink ticket.

That’s 533 Dong or $33. She showed me the number on her calculator. I paid. She handed me the ticket and dropped crumpled bills on the counter like leaves fluttering from a dying tree. Boredom enveloped her.

It leaves at 1930.

Thank you. Track #9 Car #1 Room 15/16.

Where are you from? said a Hanoi pedicab man.

I am a ghost from everywhere.

What is your country?

My country is my hand – see, five rivers.

How does it feel to be moving or sitting free and anonymous with laughter dancing down all the days? Excellent. Where do I park this empty vehicle?

*

Memory spoke: My mind is empty, said the sad old man in his small dusty Istanbul leather shop. My mother is 65. She has cancer. She has tried chemo and radiation therapy. I don’t know what to do. People come into my shop asking questions, What’s this price, How much is this, too many questions. How can I help them, what can I do?

Perhaps, said the stranger, You should just be with her. Give her the comfort she needs now. Give her water. Give her your love. Sit with her.

Yes, he said with sad deep eyes, It is difficult to be here now, gesturing around his shop crammed with shoes and bags and leather aroma.

*

A Turkish train chased moon, seawater and oil freighters. Two veiled lovers held hands at a station. Heavy green and purple grapes draped fences around barbwire stations. A sad long-faced man waiting for his life to unfold stared at the ground.

He’s married to his mother and her tomato-based history of love, regret, unemployment and zero opportunities.

A commuter ferry sailed across the Bosporus in elemental light. Visions of a Blue Mosque, spires and silver domes sparkled as blue waves swelled hearing artists carve Churning The Sea of Milk at Angkor Wat in the 9th century.

Book of Amnesia Unabridged

Process Not Product

Give the gentle reader saatch aur himmat, Z said in Turkish.

Translation please, said Devina.

Truth and Courage.

Keep them engaged, said Tran. Be gentle with the dear reader. They are educated. Challenge them.

What’s a word doctor, said Leo.

Someone who fixes manuscripts with a sharp axe, said Tran waving a Mont Blanc 148 piston-driven fountain pen splattering blood red ink on everyone in his radius. The pen is mightier than the sword. Edge focus. WE, you and I, them, he, she and us aint going anywhere. We live forever.

In your dreams, yelled Devina. Everyone’s doing hard time. It aint nothing but the blues sweet thing.

Have mercy.

Rita, an orphan and independent visionary writer from Banlung chimed in with a voice sweeter than a Buddhist bell, I’m going to be an English facilitator and historian. I’m going to stand on a street corner begging people to give me their wasted hours.

Where have I heard that before, asked Leo, an activist in exile from an orphanage on the Yangtze, heavy with silt and six trillion cubic meters of garbage flowing to the South China Sea.

What will you do with collected time, said Tran, Visit sick children in hospitals where they do DNA evolutionary experiments to stem the cells, can you sell the stems?

Speaking of stems, I’m moonlighting as a gardener, said Omar, There’s nothing more beautiful than nurturing nature in this impermanent life. We plant seeds for trees we will never see mature. Another leaf leaves life’s tree.

If you plant roses and need someone with experience to take care of the thorns give me a shout, said Tran, a one-legged Vietnamese child wearing his heart on the sleeve of a ragged 101 Screaming Eagle t-shirt.

A bird pressed its breast against a thorn singing, O what a beautiful morning o what a beautiful day.

A poet, like a chef or gardener, needs everything because they love everything.

I’m going to study Donatello, said Devina.

Who’s he?

He was a great Renaissance artist. He was born in 1386 in a place called Florence, Italy. He was honest had integrity and was super original. Technically he worked with anything. You name it: wax, bronze, marble, clay, all kinds of rocks, wood and glass. He raised the status from someone who created beauty to a craft, a real artist.

Painting with smoke and mirrors, said Tran.

Hey, that’s what the Greeks said. They believed everything was beauty and order, said Rita. Order, structure, design, form, function, oratory, mathematics, musical notes, all the beauty originated with them didn’t it?

You got it, said Tran. Hey, you know what, I think I’ll take the day off and be creative. Ha.

This present instant contains all reality, whispered Zeynep. We can call this experiment The Theory of Z, about a young precocious girl, her friends, artists and seers. Why not?

I taught a blind nomadic gardener/janitor/gravedigger and kid friends about emotional life in an alien schizoid civilization called Turkey, said Z. We shared values, stories and art with a free spirit.

I’ll tell you a secret. There’s two of me. One young and one old. The older is Kurdish and plays a cello in a cemetery. Can you dig it?

Aliens and fantastic probabilities said Rita. Tell me the difference between possibility and probability. It’s about process not product. Whew, now that’s deep.

Yeah, said Devina, We’re all in the shit, it’s only the depth that changes. Yeah, if it’s not one thing it’s something else speaking in the abstract.

Let’s not have this conversation in the abstract, said an authoritarian demanding Realist vomiting contrarian hypotheticals, truth, logic, verifiable data based evidence, scientific facts, precise specifics. We must ascertain the immediate personal moral and ethical values with lofty principles and assistant principles on principal.

Book of Amnesia Unabridged

Ambivalent

Bursa, Turkey residents heard, “Woo, woo,” and clip-clop hooves grooving asphalt.

A thin man who’d escaped the Armenian genocide in 1914 by hiding in a mountain cave with Plato’s shadow of illusions hovering over his formless form commanded a rolling wagon filled with shredded silver wire.

A black trash bag on the rear contained cardboard and a draft of The Language Company.

He snapped a long whip at a white horse wearing brown blinders. Red, green, yellow and blue wool tassel tufts waved from its sweat beaded neck. Small copper bells tinkled.

His wife’s thin, happy hungry face was a skeleton of bones. Her senses were accustomed to roots, soil, inhaling damp earth smells and back breaking labor in spring rain, summer heat, cool autumn winds and frozen earth.

Riding next to her husband hearing leather lash skin felt good. A reassuring stimulus snapped air. The horse pranced along cool be-bop jazz cobblestones in time with Monk on piano, Pastorius on bass, Rollins blowing his horn, Blakey pounding percussion and Zeynep's cello complementing the steady clip-clop rhythm.

They were richer than a poor parent’s skin. They owned their stomach’s hunger.

“Here we go,” they sang in Kurdish.

Nearby, a cafe below the TLC teachers’ apartment went broke. A wild garden blossomed.

An old man arrived with his scythe. His well-adjusted eyes surveyed nature's vociferous beauty. He unwrapped a golden yellow scarf from the curving blade of his hand-me-down tool.

The scythe was eight feet long tapering to a sharp point.

Sitting on a wooden stool he refined an edge with wet-stone strokes.

Waving, he cut a waving garden.

Death watched. Ambivalent.

At that precise moment a blue monarch butterfly probing nectar of the gods whispered turquoise wing secrets to a red hibiscus in Laos.

The Language Company